The present invention relates to the authentication of brand name products and, more particularly, to the authentication of brand name products by providing a tag that has unique information personal to the owner of the brand name product and which has a digital signature to authenticate the unique information.
Counterfeiting and forgery of goods are well known problems. Manufacturers of brand name goods such as watches, luggage, handbags, perfumes, etc. must constantly deal with counterfeiters who produce cheap imitations. Counterfeiting causes significant loss of revenue to producers of the brand name goods. Accordingly, a solution to stem the flow of counterfeit goods would be desirable.
There are a number of solutions that have been proposed by others.
Berson U.S. Pat. No. 6,904,525 discloses a method for verifying the source of an article. The label can include a brand name, serial number, reseller, etc. The label also includes encrypted information which is digitally signed using a private key.
Chu U.S. Pat. No. 7,392,953 and Chu U.S. Patent Application Publication 2007/0051816 disclose a digital label which stores and displays information about a product, such as brand name and serial number, to which it is attached.
Nagel U.S. Pat. No. 7,410,103 discloses an RFID label, one part of which is used for product identification.
Yamagishi et al. U.S. Patent Application Publication 2003/0037240 A1 propose embedding an ID chip into a brandname product. The invention relies on communication between the ID chip and an ID management center.
Umehara et al. U.S. Patent Application Publication US 2005/0068152 A1 suggest using encoded ID tags to expedite custom clearance. The invention relies on public key cryptography; therefore it does not require communications with an ID management center. At the same time, it ignores the authentication-related issues outside customs.
Park et al. U.S. Patent Application Publication 2007/0109124 disclose a tag for determining the authenticity of a product and comprises an antenna, power supply unit and an encryption/decryption unit. The tag may be read by placing a suitably enabled reader, such as a cell phone, in proximity to the tag.
Sager et al. U.S. Patent Application Publication 2008/0046263 disclose the labeling of manufactured goods with a digitally verified unique numeric identifier which can be verified by a central checking center through the use of a cell phone interface. Optical character recognition can be used in the practicing of the invention.
The disclosures of each of the foregoing references are incorporated by reference herein.
Whatever the merits, features and advantages of the above cited references, none of them achieves or fulfills the purposes of the present invention.